


Scheherazade

by Dracoduceus



Series: Zine Fics [7]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Deadlock Ashe, Deadlock McCree, M/M, Monster horror, RIP Ramón, Storytelling, might not be happily though, supernatural horror, they uh....DO end up together....
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:20:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26887258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracoduceus/pseuds/Dracoduceus
Summary: Trapped underground by a mysterious force that they cannot see, McCree does his best to keep up morale by telling stories.Little does he know that there is someone in the shadows that is listening as well.
Relationships: Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada
Series: Zine Fics [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1687132
Comments: 5
Kudos: 59
Collections: Danger & Dread: A McHanzo Horror Collection





	Scheherazade

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Danger and Dread Zine, which sadly fell through. 
> 
> Art here is done by the wonderful and talented [Trimmerlist](https://twitter.com/trimmerlist). Beta'ed by the light of my life who is absolutely not trying to steal my insurance, [IchigoWhiskey](https://twitter.com/ichigowhiskey).

###  **Day 4:**

It was hard to think of stories, despite his extensive library of them in his memory palace.

So many of them were sad—so many of them were too close to their current situation that McCree didn’t want to tell them. There were too many stories of digging too deep and unearthing something that lay slumbering beneath rock and stone—and even more filled the innumerable shelves of his mind palace now that he was thinking of such things.

At first, he had told stories like that: of hikers that were lost and found, of those that survived cave-ins and enormous cave systems. He told a different version of  _ Journey to the Center of the Earth _ , since he thought that Verne didn’t tell what could have been.

Those first few nights, the Deadlock Gang wanted no part in storytelling. Only Ashe sat close to listen to what he told the more frightened members of their group. She had always said that his voice was soothing, even if he was a compulsive fucking liar.

It was just as well—she was a compulsive thief; they were matching bookends of all kinds of fucked up.

It took him three days to tell that story, swaying in and out of different versions. Verne’s, other adaptations he had seen or read; he prolonged the story while others explored the cave system as much as they could in the dark.

When he wasn’t telling stories, McCree was among their number. As far as they could tell, it was a large opening they were trapped in. It reminded McCree of very old pictures of a canyon made of red stone. The walls were worn smooth by water, with the top of the canyon far narrower than the bottom. Shafts of white-gold sunlight, faded with the quality of the picture and the age since it had been taken, pierced through the narrow crack at the top of the canyon.

Except this slot canyon—if it was indeed one such canyon—was much, much larger. And perhaps it must turn and twist before it reached the surface, as almost no light reached their cage; only the faintest of light so that during high noon it looked like twilight.

Not that they were entirely without light. Strange stones that appeared as if they were filled with light lined the edges of their cave, casting soft, steady light. They reminded McCree of another story, which he had already removed from the shelves of his mind’s palace to begin when his current one ended.

Fiddler, who was exploring this corner of the canyon with him, swore. “Another dead-end,” he said in a whisper. Anything louder and his voice would carry back to the entire group.

“Now we know,” McCree said, lifting the fist-sized light-rock in his hand. He could have sworn that the way had been clear just a moment before; he had been  _ sure _ that he had seen another long, winding corridor to explore.

Spitting on the ground, Fiddler turned back around. “Yeah. Now we fucking know.”

McCree took one last look behind him at the closed passage and did a double-take. For a split second he had been  _ sure _ —sure  _ once more _ —that the passage had continued on, further into darkness.  _ It must be the darkness _ , McCree thought to himself.  _ Playing tricks on my mind _ .

He was a compulsive liar—even to himself.

* * *

The younger members of the group were all sleeping in an enormous puppy pile. Some of the older members watched over them, their backs to the light so that it wouldn’t affect their night vision as much. While they slept, McCree, Ashe, and some of their corporals met.

“We’re out of food and water,” one of them said. In the strange twilight from the glowing stones, Crispin’s face looked like the skull of some forgotten mummy. “But despite the rationing, I don’t feel hungry or thirsty.”

Superstitious Ramón fiddled with the cross around his neck. “We are in purgatory,” he said. “Or something like it. Here, there is no sun or moon or sky; no hunger or thirst. We only exist to suffer here.”

McCree shuddered. “Let’s hear it again,” Ashe said before Ramón could wax on about how utterly fucked they were. “McCree—tell it again.”

Crispin huffed. “Just stories,” he grumbled. “That’s all we’re hearing. What good will stories be?”

“I was sleeping when it happened,” quiet Shaw rumbled. With his enormous shoulders and blocky head, he looked much like Ashe’s Omnic butler B.O.B. and McCree’s heart clenched. What had happened to him? Was he dead? Alive and worrying about Ashe? He was the only family that Ashe had, but Ashe was also the only family that B.O.B. had.

Shaw turned his head to look at McCree. He had a bionic eye that glowed an eerie red in the darkness like the eyeshine of some wild beast in the darkness. “Let’s hear it again, McCree. You were there, weren’t you?”

That was a room in his mind palace that he didn’t want to go into, but he needed to. He took a breath as he cautiously opened the door.

_ It was a clear night beneath a sky full of stars. His mind had been on the cave that he and some of the runners had discovered earlier that day. _

_ As caves went, it was bare and nondescript, but after a bit of exploring, they had found the remains of a campfire, of signs that the cave had been inhabited. There were grasses that seemed to have served a kind of mattress and the remains of some kind of clothing that had nearly rotted away to nothing. _

_ McCree had almost been inclined to believe that whoever had lived in that cave was long gone, but the sense of eyes in the darkness made the skin on the back of his neck prickle. The runners had found another tunnel that they had marked with a white “X” with the chalk they all carried so that they could find their way back. _

_ That foray into the darkness had yielded only more winding tunnels and mazes of ancient rock yet whenever they paused for a drink of water or a quick snack, McCree could have sworn that he heard footsteps behind them. They had seemed to come right up to him, right behind him, but when he turned the lantern in that direction, there had been nobody there. _

_ The runners had gone deeper, had found an enormous cavern. At its center was a cairn of rocks and the sense of danger had nearly made McCree stumble. Something was Very Wrong in this room. _

_ Fortunately, the runners seemed to agree despite their bravado; after finding the edges of the cavern they had quickly returned to McCree. One of them had kicked a stone from the cairn and McCree had knelt to return it to its place. _

_ They had left the caves quickly, jogging when before they had been ambling along. Something in the cave had spooked them but they hid it behind bluster and bravado; by silent agreement, they said nothing about what they had found. _

_ McCree had drawn a line through the X the runners had left on that corridor, turning it into a six-pointed star—that had been the sign they used for dead-end corridors, or dangerous areas. The presence he had felt was not with him when he left. _

_ That night he had sat up when the ground roared. Things had shot out of the yawning mouth of the caves. At first McCree had thought that they were racing shadows from the golden work lights in the cave before he realized that they were moving wrong. _

_ Then they opened to reveal long-fingered hands and unlike shadows, these could and did grab people, dragging them screaming into the cave system. _

_ Chaos broke out in the camp. He watched Tara get grabbed by a leg and dragged over dirt and rocks into the cave; it was the last he saw of her, half of her face bloody from being dragged and her mouth opened in a wide “O” as she screamed in terror. _

_ More hands shot out, faster and faster and faster. They snatched people from tents and bunks, from hovercycles as they tried to escape, from the sand as they tried to run. They were all dragged deeper into the Gorge, into the caves. _

_ As he stood, watching as B.O.B. tried desperately to save Ashe as she was dragged away, he felt a presence behind him. On the stone next to him, still faintly warm from the heat of the day, he saw the silhouette of a person that had not been there before. _

_ Then the hands reached for him, too _ .

Crispin spat on the ground next to him while Ramón mouthed prayers. “This cave,” Ashe said thoughtfully.

“Doesn’t matter much,” Shaw pointed out. “We couldn’t possibly find it again. Wherever we are, however we got here, there isn’t an exit.”

Looking at the rest of the group, he found that a few of the younger runners were awake. He stood and walked over to them. “Who wants to hear a story?” he continued without waiting for a response. “How about a story about an island of dinosaurs and a cave full of stones that shone like stars?”

He was in the middle of telling a story of a police force that used enormous Pteranodons as steeds through the sky when Ashe touched his shoulder. “Go to sleep,” she said. “Get some rest. The rest of the story can wait for tomorrow.”

The runners were asleep, as were everyone that wasn’t on watch. He counted them all out of habit: twenty-seven dark lumps in the twilight of the cave.

Ashe lay down on her back as McCree stretched himself out. “I think this is the worst sleep I’ve ever had,” Ashe whispered and McCree stretched out his arm for her to lie on. To his surprise, she moved to rest her head on his shoulder. “Don’t make this weird,” she warned and McCree grinned up at the ceiling of the cave.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he drawled back. “I’d rather dream of someone pretty.” She pinched his side and he bit back a yelp. They fell still, slowly drifting off to sleep.

Feeling as if he were being watched, he peeked an eye open and could have sworn that he saw a silhouette of a person against the wall nearby—the silhouette of a person that had not been there before.

He opened both eyes and the figure was gone.

* * *

* * *

###  **Day 5:**

McCree woke up to the sound of screaming.

One of the runners was standing next to one of the open corridors, crying hysterically as she screamed the name of one of the other runners. Parker’s screams echoed off the rock.

McCree and Shaw, as well as one or two others took off down the corridor. He was the only one that thought to pick up a glowing rock, which he held aloft as he raced down the winding corridors. They followed the sounds of the screaming until they reached the end of the corridor, which cut off as cleanly as if someone had pushed a rock in place.

On the other side of the wall, the screaming continued, echoing through the labyrinth of stone until it seemed to go on forever. Then the screams took on a different pitch.

Now they were desperate.

And then there was silence.

Or rather, the runner’s screams were cut off, but there were other noises that echoed through the tunnel.

Wet pops and gurgles.

Cracking noises.

Crunching, grunting.

Slurping, a sound like a wet rag being dragged over gravel.

Like idiots, they all stood there, staring at the unnaturally-smooth wall as if by their collective will they could see through it. The noises continued until the world fell silent again; the walls shook, the floor rumbled and then settled.

McCree thought, even though it was crazy, absolutely insane, that it seemed much like someone settling down for a nap after a meal.

For a moment longer he stood staring at the wall. He put a hand on the smooth sandstone and swallowed hard when he realized that it felt  _ warm _ .

This far down, this far away from the sun, it shouldn’t be this warm.

But it was.

He turned away and looked behind him to find that everyone else had fled back into the darkness, toward the very faint glow of light from their larger cavern. Feeling around in his pocket, he found a piece of chalk and considered writing the name of the dead runner on the wall in front of him, but decided against it for now. He’d come back later and scrape her name into the stone—let her have that bit of permanence.

Mind made up, he turned and jogged back to the group.

* * *

It took hours to calm everyone down. Ashe ordered everyone to walk in groups of three or more—everyone was happy to obey.

The younger runners flocked around McCree and Ashe so that they appeared almost like chaperones on a school trip. None of them wanted to venture into the darkness of the tunnels, but a number of them had run off in the panic and they needed to be rescued.

Ashe organized these groups with Shaw to back her up; between Ashe’s calm and Shaw’s big bulk, many fears were soothed. By unspoken agreement, McCree gathered pieces of the glowing rocks around him to offer more light and settled down with the terrified runners.

He looked at them. They were children—the oldest just over eighteen, the youngest not even ten. Either their parents were dead or they were a part of the gang and this was all the family they had. They were the petty thieves of the group, the ones that got in and out undetected. Shoplifters, pickpockets, the like. They also ran messages when technology couldn’t be trusted.

The runner that died was one of the oldest ones they had, had been on the way to being a full member of the gang. It didn’t change the fact that she had been so young…

Even the eighteen-year-old looked terrified so McCree opened his mind palace and said, “Do you want to hear more about the sky riders on their Pteranodons?”

* * *

McCree tried not to think about B.O.B. when he finished the story of the riders and their Pteranodons and moved on to  _ Jurassic Park _ . The big Omnic butler had loved the movie and was content to sit with McCree while they read Crichton’s novel.

In his opinion, Crichton’s biggest issue was that he had been too dry. Where was the wonder? The splendor?

To be fair it was there, but McCree hadn’t much cared for the discussions of chaos theory or genetic sequencing, or what felt like twenty useless pages discussing Gaussian curves and statistical analysis. These he omitted from his version of the story, and he made sure to give the story a happier twist.

Perhaps the dinosaurs just didn’t know what to make of humans and didn’t chase them down. Perhaps there weren’t carnivorous dinosaurs that escaped at all, and the humans that were trapped in the park got to meet all of the gentle herbivorous ones.

When he ran out of things to say he gave it a happy ending—the children being dropped off to the docks by dinosaurs and they all sailed away. The facility wasn’t abandoned and everyone, even the dinosaurs, lived happily ever after.

Nobody seemed to mind the abrupt ending.

He started on another story about scientists finding a new island in the middle of the Pacific that had evolved in isolation. Plants and animals were all unlike anything that had been seen in the world.

Again, he gave this world a happy ending. The plants and animals didn’t attack the humans that explored the island. Nobody died. 

The runners slept fitfully. When Ashe assured him quietly that she would watch over them, McCree stood and walked into the darkness. Their corporals all looked at him like he was crazy for going alone but when he looked at them to ask if they’d go along, they all looked away. 

He couldn’t blame them. 

Holding a glowing stone aloft, McCree made his way back down the tunnel to the cut-off portion where they were separated from the kidnapped runner. Finding a stone, McCree scraped her name into the rock.

Done, he put his hand on her name and bowed his head to murmur a quick prayer. He couldn’t help but feel as if he was being watched so he finished his prayer quickly and jogged back to the rest of the group.

The further he ran from the rock, the more it felt like he was alone. 

* * *

* * *

###  **Day 7:**

The funny thing about being trapped in the darkness was that it was difficult to remember what was reality. It was easy to fall prey to the demons in the mind as they danced beyond the periphery. There was an instinctive fear of the darkness and what it may be hiding.

And there was a lot of darkness in this cave.

McCree took a stone and wandered. Nobody wanted to venture deeper into the caves, not after what had happened to the runner, but McCree could have  _ sworn _ that he had seen something. That, aside from whatever had dragged the runner away, there was something—or some _ one _ else there.

He held a shining stone over his head to light the way and came up to the stone where he had carved the runner’s name. Now the marking were deeper as if carved with a chisel, and there was another note next to it:  **ご愁傷様でした** .

“Is someone there?” he whispered.

There was only silence. He held up his light again and counted the shadows. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw the silhouette of a person but when he turned his head again, it was gone.

He walked quickly back to the group.

They were uneasy and a few of the runners hurried to him. None of them were cowards or particularly scared of anything but McCree could understand their fear of the darkness, of these endless caves.

Of the echoes of the runner’s dying screams and how they had so suddenly cut off.

He sat down and let them flock around him, their eyes all pleading for something to break the monotony of their fear. So, he told them a story of a girl that could speak to animals.

As he spoke, he looked at the walls of the cave. Near the tunnel he had just come from was a silhouette of a person and this time, it didn’t shift away as he stared. It was all he could do to keep up the narrative as the shadow began to move, as if the person that cast it walked around the edge of the cave.

There was nobody moving in that direction or at that speed.

He watched the shadow disappear into a cave, swallowed by the darkness beyond the light cast by their strange stones. But even though he could no longer see it, he could almost feel its presence there, as if it, too, wanted to hear his stories.

The next story he told was of a spirit wearing a pale mask that walked into a bathhouse. It didn’t know what to do so consumed everything it encountered. Eventually a little girl lured it out of the bathhouse and once it was free of the terrible air of the bathhouse that encouraged such greed and such a voracious appetite, it returned to a kindly spirit.

This time the shadow remained in place, as if standing attentively to watch him.

* * *

* * *

###  **Day 10:**

By McCree’s reckoning, it was about two days later when another was taken. This time it was Shaw and McCree was able to see it.

Something had made the hairs at the nape of his neck stand on end. Shaw must have felt it too because he turned at the same time as McCree and booked it back to the main cavern. He was a big man, but when sufficiently motivated, he could  _ move _ ; with the visceral fear of death and darkness, he moved even faster, easily overtaking McCree even with his long-legged stride.

For a few terrifying moments, McCree was sure that the hands would come for him—that some two-dimensional shadow would somehow reach  _ out _ and grab his leg, dragging him to a death beyond a rock wall.

But the hands didn’t come for him.

The hands didn’t come until he had made it back to the cavern. Shaw was herding the smaller runners, some of whom had frozen in fear. It reminded McCree of deer who froze in shock upon seeing the headlights of a car coming right upon it.

He didn’t stop, just tilted his shoulders down and extended his arms. Just as fear was a sufficient motivator for a big man like Shaw to put on a burst of speed, that same fear gave McCree the strength to pick up three runners—two under one arm, one under the other—and drag them deeper into the cavern, away from the dark tunnels.

The younger runners screamed, their pitches jumping suddenly as the hands came into view. McCree spun in place, feeling his knee pop. That same fear that gave him the strength to pick up the runners also allowed him to ignore that brief burst of pain.

McCree watched as the darkness of the tunnel that he just left seemed to move. Suddenly he could no longer see into that area, as if it was covered by a black velvet hanging.

As if something stood there.

Then black tendrils shot out and those tendrils solidified into hands with long fingers and grasping claws. They moved around the clearing in such a way that reminded McCree of scooping up sand as a child—only these shadowy hands were gathering them all together.

Shaw saw it too—and he stomped on one of the shadows as it swung towards him. Immediately it leaped up, shot off the ground in a motion too quick to track. The hand wrapped around Shaw and yanked him into the darkness.

He didn’t even have time to scream. Or maybe he did, but the terrified shrieks of the runners drowned it out. Some had fallen to the ground, sobbing, as whatever shadow had blocked that tunnel receded.

All that was left was a human silhouette.

* * *

* * *

###  **Day 11:**

Everyone slept in an enormous pile so that between their bodies the ground was completely hidden. Ashe and McCree set up watches. There would always be at least three of them awake; only the youngest runners were spared that duty.

They were under no illusion that they were in deep trouble if the hands came back. They had no weapons to defend themselves and given how quickly Shaw had been taken, McCree doubted that any weapon would do much against it anyway.

During his watch, McCree made sure that his partners were also awake before moving down the tunnels toward the wall. As before, nobody wanted to follow him.

He couldn’t say exactly why he wandered down—why the names of their dead needed to be on  _ this _ wall—but he could say that he felt inexplicably drawn here, as if someone unseen beckoned him.

Was it the shadow he kept seeing?

Was the shadow related to the hands?

There was a glowing stone just ahead of him, pressed up against the solid wall that blocked that tunnel. He did not see the shadowy silhouette, but could feel its eyes on him. At the base of the smooth rock wall was a rusted iron bar that looked like an old railroad spike.

It had the heft of heavy iron and he turned it over in his hands thoughtfully. Then, as whoever had left it clearly wanted him to, he wrote  _ Shaw _ into the stone.

He took the railroad spike with him when he left and didn’t look back. He hurried to the cavern and the rest of his group and tried not to think of the eyes he felt on the back of his neck.

* * *

* * *

###  **Day 12:**

When he woke up the next morning, stiff from another night’s sleep on the hard rock, he found that there was a stranger sitting next to him.

“Who are you?” he asked very quietly.

The man looked down at him. “You may call me Hanzo,” he said in a strangely stilted way, as if he wasn’t used to speaking out loud.

“Why are you here?” McCree asked and very slowly sat up. He wanted to see if anyone else had noticed Hanzo but didn’t trust him enough to look away.

Hanzo seemed to consider the question. His movements reminded McCree of sloths—each motion was precisely measured. “I was curious.”

“Curious about what?”

“You.”

McCree squinted at him. “Are you trapped here too?” he asked.

“I am.”

“Why haven’t we seen you before?”

Hanzo regarded him. “I was not sure if I should show myself,” Hanzo said at last.

“Why not?” McCree asked a bit sharply.

“Why should I trust you?”

He had a point. “How do I know that you mean us no harm?”

“You do not.”

Hanzo seemed uninterested in asking questions, instead watching McCree with his dark eyes. His clothes seemed old and worn and he seemed thin, his skin pale as if he had been trapped here for a while.

“How long have you been here?” McCree asked instead.

“I do not know how long,” Hanzo said slowly. “Only that it has been…a long time.”

That didn’t bode well. “How have you not been taken?”

“The Shadow went to sleep.”

McCree perked up. “The Shadow? So you know about it?”

“I do.”

Risking it, McCree looked around. The three people on watch were on the other side of the cave and even as far away as they were, McCree could see the whites all around their eyes.

They were terrified.

“Why are they afraid of you?” McCree demanded. Nearby, Ashe began to stir. “Speak quickly or I won’t be able to defend you.”

“There are worse things to be afraid of,” Hanzo said. “But I expect that they fear what comes from the tunnels. Where else would I have come from?”

Ashe lifted her head and her eyes widened to see the man talking to McCree. She opened her mouth and McCree lifted his finger to his lips.

“That’s Ashe,” he said. “The leader.”

“The gang leader,” Hanzo agreed. “I know who she is.”

McCree scowled at him. “Do ya now?” Ashe asked, her hiss as deadly as a viper’s.

“You two are the only ones keeping the group from fleeing into the tunnels,” Hanzo pointed out. “A feat to be commended. The last group was not so lucky.”

Ashe’s eyes narrowed and he could see the gears turning in her head. “He’s been here for a while, he says,” he told her urgently. “And that he survived because the…what’d you call it?”

“The Shadow.”

“The Shadow went to sleep,” McCree finished.

She peered at Hanzo. “Why did it go to sleep?” She asked. “And what woke it up?”

Hanzo seemed to consider those questions. “It was harder to catch its food as the numbers thinned out. To preserve itself, it went to sleep.”

“Hibernated,” McCree suggested. “Like a bear.” The thought of hibernation opened another room in his memory palace. “Other animals can slow their metabolism down to almost nothing in times of shortage. Is that what happened?”

For a long moment Hanzo didn’t answer. At last he said very succinctly, “Yes.”

Ashe made an impatient sound. “And what woke it up?”

Hanzo tilted his head to the side. “You did.” He moved his hands from his lap—and here McCree realized belatedly that he had been kneeling with his legs tucked beneath him the way that he knew they did it in Japan—and put them on the stone in front of him. “I could feel The Shadow walking up. The stones began to shift and move. And then you were all brought here.”

“How did we wake it up?” Ashe demanded as McCree opened the doors to his mind palace again. “And how do we put it to sleep again? How can we escape?”

Hanzo gave them a bleak look. “You can only put it to sleep by glutting The Shadow’s appetite,” he said. “You cannot escape it.”

“But you did,” Ashe pointed out. “So how did you escape?”

“Who says that I have?” Hanzo asked, suddenly sounding much more exhausted. “I am still just as trapped here as you are.”

McCree leaned forward suddenly. “The runners were exploring the caves,” he remembered. “One of them must have woken The Shadow.”

“You don’t  _ believe _ him, do you?” Ashe asked sharply.

He shrugged as Hanzo looked back and forth between them. Seeing him watching them, McCree switched to Spanish and told her urgently “ _ It doesn’t matter if I do or I don’t. But right now, he’s our best option to know what’s happening—and what’s going on. _ ”

“ _ He said it himself, _ ” Ashe argued back in the same language. “ _ He only survived because he was able to stay ahead of those hands—all of  _ his _ friends are dead! _ ”

Hanzo continued to watch him. “ _ It doesn’t hurt to ask, _ ” McCree told her quietly while looking at Hanzo. “ _ It doesn’t hurt to hold on to hope. _ ”

“ _ I’ll hold on to something more practical, _ ” Ashe said. “ _ For now… _ ” she switched back to English. “Do you mean us harm?”

“I do not,” Hanzo replied mildly.

She drummed her fingers impatiently on her thigh. Her once-pretty nails were chipped and ragged from her time in the caves. “ _ Find out what you can from him _ ,” Ashe told McCree in Spanish. “Concrete _ facts, not hope. _ ”

Hanzo didn’t turn to watch her go, his dark eyes fixed unnervingly on McCree. “Tell me about The Shadow,” McCree suggested. “If we’re to survive…we need to know as much as we can.”

For a long moment Hanzo didn’t answer. McCree waited him out patiently and wondered if Hanzo had always been this patient or if his long entrapment in the darkness of the caves had done such a thing to him. “It will not matter,” Hanzo said at last, sounding exhausted and defeated. “I doubt that many of you will survive.”

* * *

* * *

###  **Day 14:**

Hanzo continued to refuse to give him too many details. McCree was inclined to believe that he really didn’t know that much, either.

He told McCree that it was better and worse for them to be clustered together. It meant that The Shadow could easily find and reach them; it meant that they could keep track of how strong The Shadow grew by knowing how much it had eaten.

“It  _ eats _ us?” McCree asked in a horrified whisper as he and Hanzo explored the caves again. The look Hanzo gave him, his face pale in the soft white light that spilled from the light rock in his hands, told McCree that he already knew the answer to that. “Fuck.”

Hanzo held up a hand and they stopped. Looking at Hanzo, he found that the other man had closed his eyes, his head cocked to the side as he seemed to be listening to something that McCree couldn’t hear.

He wondered how lonely Hanzo was—and how long he had been trapped down here. Hanzo’s skin was pale, unnervingly so, as if he hadn’t seen the sun in some time; his clothes were old and tattered, the hems of his wide-legged trousers frayed.

McCree didn’t ask him again how long he’d been trapped in the caves. The passage of time was hard to judge with almost no natural light filtering in.

He wondered about their sanity; he wondered about Hanzo’s.

* * *

* * *

###  **Day 20:**

Hanzo knew the tunnels well and led McCree—only McCree, because nobody else was brave enough to follow—into the labyrinth. He showed McCree where to find an underground spring even though McCree hadn’t felt thirst for what had to be days, showed him how to hunt the pale, blind fish in it even though he hadn’t felt hunger in just as long.

He showed McCree tiny runoffs of tunnels and where he could find rocks that could start a fire though they had nothing to burn. Hanzo showed McCree how to climb the rocks and where to find little hidey-holes which he claimed to use to hide from The Shadow though admitted that it hadn’t saved others that had tried the same.

“How long have you been down here?” McCree asked one day as they dipped their feet into the cool waters of the creek. Hanzo didn’t wear shoes—they had likely worn themselves out as McCree’s had done. He was beginning to develop the leather-hard callouses that Hanzo had but it was a slow and painful process and he still limped and cursed when he stepped on a sharp piece of stone.

At least down here he didn’t have to worry about the stone heating up beneath the sun and burning him. Or…that’s what he tried to tell himself. It didn’t always work as reassurance.

Hanzo seemed to consider that. He was slow, but it was a deliberate kind of slowness as if he weighed every word he heard against every word he chose to speak. “There were three other groups of people that I met,” Hanzo said at last. “And more that I heard screaming in the caves.”

“How often have they come?”

Hanzo dipped his fingers into the water. The bracelet of perfectly-round light-pebbles glittered over the water. More than once it had helped the both of them navigate and McCree could appreciate its superiority to wasting a hand that was needed to climb to hold a light.

“I barely notice the passage of time anymore,” Hanzo said at last. “It’s been so long.” They lapsed into silence again. Then, to McCree’s surprise, Hanzo asked, “How do you know so many stories?”

“You were listening?” McCree asked, surprised.

Hanzo nodded. “Your voice carries in the tunnels,” he said. “I heard you all the night you arrived and I heard all of your stories. You know so many. How?”

“I make some of them up,” McCree admitted. “Most are stories I read. I was the kind of kid that went to the library a lot—and growing up, the  _ vaquero _ and the cook used to tell me stories all the time.”

Hanzo watched him with an unnerving, unblinking stare. For the first time, McCree wondered if his long pauses were because he didn’t understand. Was English his first language?

Perhaps that was unfair; perhaps he simply wasn’t used to speaking to other people. By his own admission, he  _ had _ been trapped in the caves for some time.

“My family owned a cattle ranch,” he explained. “At least, they did before the Crisis. Then the economy was destroyed and they lost the ranch. I had grown up with the  _ vaquero _ —the…herders—so I was able to do that kind of work to support myself. Time was that we had the best cattle in the area and people would pay ridiculous sums per head.”

Hanzo hummed. “‘Time was’,” he echoed solemnly. “That’s the funny thing about time.”

“Don’t I know it,” McCree said ruefully. “What about you? What was your family known for?”

For a long time Hanzo was quiet. “My…father was the leader of the village and I was his heir. But my brother disgraced himself and rather than see him die I followed him.”

“But you were the heir,” McCree protested before he could stop himself.

The smile that curled Hanzo’s lips was not a pleasant one. “There were other heirs,” he said. “And I love my brother.”

They were quiet for a long moment and for once McCree had no idea what to say. Hanzo had said “love”; in the present tense. Was his brother still somewhere in these caves? Was he hiding from The Shadow?

Or was he dead and Hanzo unwilling to acknowledge it?

“We were known for agriculture,” Hanzo said at last with a longing in his voice that twisted McCree’s heart. “The hills were covered in cherry trees and every spring the petals would fall to the ground like snow.”

Swallowing, McCree reached out and touched Hanzo’s arm with the tips of his fingers. “Hey,” he said with a weak smile. “No talk like that. We’ll get out of here.”

The look on Hanzo’s face was heartbreakingly bleak. “No,” he said, sounding defeated. “We won’t ever escape here.”

* * *

* * *

###  **Day 25:**

Hanzo wasn’t allowed to tell stories but he was welcome to join the group when McCree entertained them. The stories he told were heartbreaking and had no happy endings.

They were filled with wizards and demons and curses; of dark caves and being trapped forever with an impossible hunger. The stories he told were cautionary tales, not something meant to be uplifting.

It upset everyone, even Ashe.

The hands of The Shadow came back. When the screams died down, McCree and Hanzo walked to the wall. He leaned his face against the warm stone and struggled not to cry.

“Who does this?” he asked Hanzo.

“An eternal hunger,” Hanzo replied, sounding just as defeated, just as exhausted from despair.

When McCree pulled his head away, he found that the strange runes had been carved into the stone while he hadn’t been looking. The list of names grew and the same runes appeared beside them. He traced the markings with the tips of his fingers and sniffed.

“What do you think it means?” he asked Hanzo.

For a long moment Hanzo was quiet; he assumed that Hanzo had shrugged, that he didn’t know, but to his surprise, Hanzo did. “It means ‘I’m sorry for your loss’.”

Fear rattled down his spine. “Is it mocking us?” he demanded. “Is it making fun of our suffering? How cruel.”

Hanzo didn’t say anything.

That night when McCree told a story of a rainbow bridge that allowed you to travel anywhere, even to other worlds, Hanzo stayed away from the group. He sat in the mouth of one of the tunnels, face half-covered in shadow.

They all took turns suggesting worlds and what you might find on them. One of them suggested that there was a world of wildflowers; another suggested a world of mountains and snow.

Ramón volunteered a story of his childhood in Dorado: the smell of the salt air, the sound of the boats in the harbor. Piñatas in all shapes and sizes and colors bobbing from strings of lights around the fountain at the center of the market. He talked about the food carts and vendors that lined the market and how he and his siblings would all eat all kinds of street food until their mouths and hands and arms were all smeared with grease and sauce.

While Ramón spoke, McCree moved to Hanzo and sat next to him, halfway in the shadows of the tunnels. “They will miss you,” Hanzo whispered to McCree.

“It’s fine,” McCree replied. “You know, you can sit with us, you know.”

Hanzo shook his head and McCree sighed. Neither of them spoke for the rest of the night, though McCree really wanted to know why Hanzo was so determined to distance himself again.

* * *

* * *

###  **Day 32:**

The hands came again.

Screams echoed in the caverns.

McCree added a name to an ever-growing list. He felt numb now—was this what Hanzo felt like all the time? Hanzo had once told him, what felt like years ago, that he had watched many other groups come through. What did it feel like to be the only survivor so many times?

Hanzo offered a story. They were all wary, knowing how sad his stories were, but he assured them quietly that it was his brother’s favorite story as a child.

When given the floor, he told the story of an old man and an old woman that wished for a son. They prayed to the gods and was rewarded with a son that did not grow older than one  _ sun _ —which Hanzo demonstrated was an inch or so tall. As a result, he was called Issun-bōshi, the “one- _ sun _ boy”.

He told stories of the bravery of the diminutive boy with a sword-sheath made of a piece of hay and a sword made of a needle. Issun-bōshi fell in love with the daughter of a lord and begged to be her protector to be near to her. In time, their proximity and Issun-bōshi’s bravery caused her to fall in love with him as well.

One day the daughter was attacked by monsters that Hanzo called  _ oni _ and he leaped to defend her when none of her guards could fight them off. Issun-bōshi stabbed the  _ oni _ holding her with his needle-sword and she was dropped so she could flee; then Issun-bōshi stabbed the  _ oni _ in the eye and it fled, leaving behind a magic hammer.

The woman lifted the hammer, wished that Issun-bōshi was taller, and got her wish. For his bravery, the lord allowed Issun-bōshi to marry his daughter and they lived happily ever after.

McCree could see how a brother might like that story—especially if he was the younger brother. He thought that Hanzo had said that he was the older one.

The story was well received and Hanzo was bombarded with questions about Issun-bōshi. Was there more to the story? What happened next? Was he still called Issun-bōshi? How tall was he?

Since nobody else was tired, McCree jumped in and helped Hanzo to weave a new story following Issun-bōshi’s later adventures. Hanzo described the monsters they fought—some of which McCree recognized from Japanese folklore—and McCree wove the story until everyone was exhausted and it was only them and those on watch that were left awake.

“Where did you hear that story?” McCree asked quietly as they moved off to the side to go to bed. Hanzo did not sleep near the rest of the group and McCree couldn’t blame him; at the same time, Hanzo didn’t seem to mind McCree’s presence.

It was scary how much McCree didn’t mind Hanzo’s presence either. Not that Hanzo wasn’t perfectly cordial, and not that he wasn’t fascinating in his own way, but…

But Hanzo was a wildcard. He was someone that nobody quite know what to make of, hadn’t been a part of the Deadlock Gang until they found each other in the tunnels and yet…

Hanzo inspected the ground, kneeling and putting his hands over the rock before nodding to himself. He curled up on the ground and watched as McCree carefully joined him, close but not touching. At first McCree thought that Hanzo hadn’t heard his question and made a mental note to ask again tomorrow when Hanzo spoke.

“Our mother would tell us stories as children,” Hanzo said quietly, voice barely a whisper. As close as they were, McCree could clearly hear him. “Issun-bōshi was Genji’s favorite.”

“Is that your brother?” Hanzo nodded once. “What was  _ your  _ favorite?”

Hanzo was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, again very quietly, “Momotarō.”

“Will you tell it tomorrow?”

“Maybe.”

They were quiet for a long moment. “Why were your other stories so sad?” McCree whispered, half expecting Hanzo to be asleep. “Every other story you told scared everyone. Why didn’t you tell these stories sooner?”

“Because there is no reason to hope,” Hanzo replied. “There is no hero to come and rescue you.”

They fell into silence and McCree heard Hanzo’s breaths even out into the steady cadence of sleep. He figured that it was just coincidence, just an exhausted slip of the tongue, that Hanzo said that there was no one to “come and rescue  _ you _ ”.

The lights on Hanzo’s bracelet cast pale shadows on the harsh lines of his face, made the hollow of his eyes seem darker, as if a skull stared back at McCree. Unnerved by the sight and by the ill thoughts that rattled around in his head, McCree closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep.

* * *

* * *

###  **Day 37:**

Hanzo knelt beside McCree. He was glad that the other man didn’t try to touch him; he didn’t know what he’d do.

McCree pounded on the stone walls until his hands and knuckles were bloody. His hands smeared the dark stone with red. A distant part of him wondered if this was what the mourners for royalty did, if they pounded uselessly at the walls until their hands bled.

Through it all, Hanzo sat beside him, his head bowed as if in prayer. He said nothing as McCree cried himself out. Let the gang think him weak; Ashe had truly been all the family he had left.

There was B.O.B. of course, but if Hanzo was right, they weren’t escaping this hell—and he didn’t even know if the big omnic was alive, anyway. Anyone else here was…was…

_ Wasn’t Ashe _ .

He no longer had the  _ vaquero _ or the servants that had tended to him as a child—and he wasn’t so much their  _ friend _ as a pawn to use, as the son of the owners that would one day become their employer.

The gang members were likewise pawns. He was  _ fond _ of them, even superstitious Ramón, but they weren’t Ashe.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed before he could gather himself. Hanzo was still there, his bracelet of light casting a soft silver glow on the dark world around them. If Hanzo thought him weak for sobbing like a child at something that couldn’t change, he gave no sign of it.

“She was all I had left,” he told Hanzo in a cracked whisper. “All the family I had left.”

Hanzo swallowed, face twisting in shared grief, in a peculiar kind of guilt—survivor’s guilt, the same punch in the gut that McCree was feeling. Perhaps he was remembering his own brother. “I’m…sorry for your loss,” he said quietly. “I’m… _ so _ sorry.”

Sniffing, McCree looked up at the wall that bore the names of their dead. He hadn’t added Ashe’s name yet but he felt strangely weak, too weak to do so. “Can you…can you write her name?”

There was silence for a long moment. “I cannot,” Hanzo admitted quietly. “I learned English by listening but I have not learned how to write.”

McCree sniffed and then looked at the wall. He looked down at his hands, at the blood still seeping from the cuts in his knuckles. In the darkness, they were black with flashes of reflected silver from Hanzo’s bracelet. With shaking hands, he smeared Ashe’s name—the name she wanted, not the name she had been given—into the stone.

Hanzo picked up a railroad spike that McCree hadn’t seen in the darkness of the cave and with careful strokes, began following the dark marks. He carved the lines deep, with more strength than McCree thought he’d possess, and soon Ashe’s name was immortalized.

Neither of them said anything for a long while. “How many groups have you seen here?” McCree asked in a breathless whisper.

“Many,” Hanzo whispered back, sounding haunted. “So many. The Shadow is always hungry.”

That night, Hanzo slept with the group. What was left of them didn’t want to venture toward the dark caves and what horrors they may hide, and McCree couldn’t leave them to live in fear. All it took was one pleading look and Hanzo came closer. He lay down beside McCree and let the other Deadlocks climb over him in an enormous pile.

McCree looked over at Hanzo and found him looking back.

When they went to sleep, their fingers were touching.

* * *

* * *

###  **Day 38:**

“Is this unwelcome?” McCree asked, one hand cupping Hanzo’s cheek as they washed McCree’s still-bloody knuckles in the water of the underground stream.

Hanzo let out a shuddering breath, his eyes seeming to glow blue and silver in the light from his glowing bracelet. It made them seem as old and eternal as the starry night. A line of silver burned McCree’s hand, followed by another.

Tears.

Leaning close, Hanzo brushed his nose against McCree’s. “Unwelcome,” he whispered, barely audible over the gentle bubbling of the water. “But not for the reasons you ask. I still wish this with all my heart.” 

McCree swallowed hard, knowing in the very marrow of his bones what Hanzo was talking about. How they may die at any moment.

How The Shadows may come for them as well.

For the moment they ignored those thoughts, ignored the terrors of the darkness that surrounded them. Leaning close, they sealed their lips in a solemn—and very fragile—promise.

* * *

* * *

###  **Day 72:**

Their numbers dwindled.

Soon there were only three of them: McCree, Hanzo, and a runner named Daniel.

The time in the caves had broken the poor runner and most of the time he lay, staring up at the ceiling or the walls. Sometimes he would come close and lie with his head in McCree or Hanzo’s lap and they would pet his hair while he stared blankly at something they couldn’t see.

For a while The Shadow didn’t come, as if it were slowing down. McCree refused to hope for that possibility. This wasn’t like what Hanzo had said—they were in one place and The Shadow knew where to find them. Its food source was in easy reach and yet…

Why had it stopped?

He would have asked Hanzo if it wouldn’t have upset Daniel. He would have suggested that they all hide in the caves if only Daniel could move. As it was, he lay limp on the ground or over their laps like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

In another world, he may have had a future; he may have  _ lived _ . Now, McCree couldn’t even spare the grief for what will never happen.

He, too, was feeling empty and hollow.

At the times they slept, McCree could hear The Shadow moving around. Those times, he would look up to find Hanzo looking intently into the shadows, alert. His eyes traced something that McCree couldn’t see, the reflection of the glowing beads of his bracelet making his eyes seem like a blanket of stars in the night sky.

McCree said nothing and watched Hanzo, waited for the invisible hands to grab him and drag him away, to watch Hanzo be pulled into the darkness; to feel Daniel ripped from his arms.

Instead he felt nothing.

He felt nothing and he wondered.

* * *

* * *

###  **Day 78:**

The Shadow came back.

They all backed against the wall but still the hands came, breaking through the circle of glowing stones. With nobody else there, the piles of glowing rocks lit up the room.

It made seeing The Shadow, which moved along the ground like ink given life that much more terrible. The Shadow’s hands crept forward as if toying with them, as if stalking them.

The hands paused and reached for McCree, moving with a strange kind of slowness, as if it were tired and weak. As if it were struggling against something.

**“No,”** Hanzo barked and they all flinched.

Even The Shadow.

Then it darted out and grabbed Daniel’s leg. Suddenly life returned to the runner and he wailed, he grabbed at McCree, at Hanzo, and clung to their arms as The Shadow began to reel him toward the cave it had emerged from.

McCree dug his heels in and Hanzo grabbed on as well, holding tightly to Daniel as he flailed and kicked and tried to escape the inhuman grip that tugged him toward the darkness.

Another hand shot out, reaching for McCree.  **“NO!”** Hanzo roared in a voice like a peal of thunder. He let go and reached desperately for McCree.

For the first time McCree  _ heard _ The Shadow. It laughed gleefully and yanked Daniel out of their arms. He fell, his head hitting the stone floor with a terrible  _ crack _ ; Daniel went completely limp.

When The Shadow reeled him in, faster than McCree could catch him, it was still laughing.

Hanzo buried his face in his hands as McCree stared off into the darkness. Suddenly a lot of things began to make sense.

How Hanzo came and went through the tunnels like a ghost, how Hanzo was never afraid of The Shadow.

That he said that nobody would “rescue  _ you _ ” instead of  _ us _ .

A hundred little things that McCree had explained away that now leaped to the forefront of his thoughts. The tunnels echoed with The Shadow’s laugh as Hanzo buried his face in his hands.

Very slowly he turned toward Hanzo. “It was you all this time,” he breathed. With nobody else in the caverns, his voice felt too loud.

“I am not The Shadow,” Hanzo said weakly, bitterly. He didn’t look at McCree. “I am just as trapped here as you are.”

McCree felt something shatter in his chest, something that had barely been held together since Ashe’s death. He remembered the times that The Shadow’s hands had skipped past him to grab someone else. Those times he had just thought that he was lucky; now he knew better, he supposed. Hanzo had protected him.

But he hadn’t protected anyone else, not even the youngest of the runners as they were dragged, kicking and screaming, into the darkness.

He hadn’t protected Ashe, the only family McCree had left.

McCree’s breath hitched and he realized that he was crying. Hot tears burned their way down his face as he stared at Hanzo who would not even look at him. “Look at me,” McCree hissed and Hanzo flinched. “Has all of this been a lie?”

Very slowly Hanzo turned to look at McCree and then let his hands fall from his face. Tears trailed silver trails down his face, shimmering in the pale light of the glowing stones.

“How can I know that anything you’ve told me was real?” McCree whispered in a cracked voice. He felt as broken as Daniel had been, the weight of Hanzo’s betrayal dragging him down into darkness as quickly as The Shadows had scooped everyone else away.

Hanzo said nothing, his face a study of misery. His eyes were dark and this time it wasn’t a trick; this time McCree couldn’t deny that they were inhuman. Those eyes that McCree loved so much were filled with lights, like stars in the sky. How often had McCree stared into those fathomless eyes and thought that they were just reflections, even where there was nothing to reflect?

“You called it each time,” McCree whispered.

“I did not,” Hanzo said sharply, his voice cracking like a whip between them.

McCree shook his head. “How do I know that you’re not lying?”

It seemed that Hanzo didn’t have an answer for that. He looked away.

“How do I know that you haven’t lied…” he trailed off, not even able to put those terrible thoughts into words.

Hanzo said nothing.

That night they slept on opposite ends of the lighted cavern and McCree felt the distance as keenly as a physical wound.

* * *

* * *

###  **Day 79:**

He woke up as Hanzo walked out of the caverns, carrying a glowing rock.

How many times had McCree seen him do that? Leave with empty hands and return with a glowing rock? Very carefully, Hanzo put the rock down and stroked its smooth face with a shaking hand.

He didn’t say anything; neither did McCree.

* * *

* * *

###  **Day 80:**

“I loved you,” McCree whispered into the distance between them.

It was a lie; even though he should hate him for his betrayal, he knew that he still did love Hanzo.

Perhaps that’s what hurt the most, what made his heart feel full of shattered glass.

Hanzo didn’t say anything but as McCree closed his eyes and pretended to sleep, he could see that his eyes were open.

Shortly before he fell asleep for real, he heard Hanzo whisper, “I still love you.”

* * *

* * *

###  **Day 84:**

McCree walked into the caves and Hanzo followed. He found the railroad spike near the wall of names and traced Daniel’s into the stone.

As he watched, Hanzo placed his hand on the wall, careful not to stand too closely to McCree. The bracelet of beads shimmered and the stone wall  _ shifted _ ; Daniel’s name glowed like the glowing stones in the main cavern. When the light faded, the name appeared to be etched into the stone; beside it was the same phrase that Hanzo had said meant  _ I’m sorry for your loss _ .

It had been Hanzo’s apology.

McCree tried to swallow the lump in his throat as he ran his hand over Ashe’s name. If Hanzo saw that he kept the railroad spike he gave no sign.

They walked back to the lighted cavern together.

“What are these?” McCree asked. It felt strange to speak to Hanzo again.

“Spirits,” Hanzo replied.

McCree’s eyes fell to the bracelet of round stones around Hanzo’s wrist. Lovers? His family? He didn’t want to ask. When he looked up, he found Hanzo looking at him, a bleak look on his face. “I rescued what I could so that The Shadow wouldn’t consume them all. But they are still trapped here, just as we are. One day they can be free and can go where The Shadow cannot reach them; but now they remain here.”

“How long have you been here?” McCree asked.

Hanzo sighed. He suddenly looked so much more tired, as if the question had taken everything from him. “I’ve seen many groups pass through here,” he said as he had always said when McCree had asked. “I’ve heard many screams, saw many groups.”

“How many have you protected?” McCree asked, voice brittle. His eyes dropped down to Hanzo’s bracelet again. Lovers? Or family?

“One,” Hanzo replied.

McCree clung to that, tried to stir his anger to give him strength. “What made that group different than mine?” he asked. “Will you continue to do this? For how long?”

“One person,” Hanzo said, his hollow voice cutting through McCree’s anger. “Some have been devoured before I could do anything. Some have gone where I cannot follow. I still hear their screams echoing at night—it is my divine punishment.” He sighed and did not look at McCree again. “But I have only ever saved one person.”

* * *

* * *

###  **Day 89:**

The railroad spike was dull but it tapered to a point and McCree had strength born of anger and desperation.

But it wasn’t anger, it was a soul-killing despair. It was his conscience and Ashe’s ghost—real or imagined—whispering in his ear.

Hanzo stared up at him but his eyes weren’t accusing, just resigned. His breath rattled and the sound sucked; McCree had pierced a lung.

“You lied to me,” McCree whispered, feeling the ridiculous need to justify himself even though Hanzo had already admitted to his guilt. Those words were still echoing in McCree’s memory palace, along with the sound of Ashe’s voice.

Hanzo’s hand gently touched the railroad spike embedded in his chest. Blood was wetting his lips but if he felt any pain, he didn’t show it. His brow was furrowed but if he was confused that McCree might feel the need to explain himself or confused about the situation, he couldn’t begin to guess.

In the soft light of the glowing stones—that he now knew were lit from within by the spirits of all those that Hanzo had led to their doom—Hanzo’s tears were molten silver. It wasn’t until Hanzo’s hand brushed against McCree’s cheek that he realized that it wasn’t Hanzo’s tears but his own.

“I…” Hanzo said, voice weak and rattling.

McCree had killed what felt like hundreds of people before. He’d seen all manner of death but none had made him feel quite as hollow as watching Hanzo fade with each weakening beat of his heart. Now, with each sucking, bubbling breath, it felt as if some part of him faded with Hanzo.

When he died, would McCree be an empty husk?

Hanzo cupped McCree’s cheek with a clammy hand. His skin, already pale from innumerable years in the perpetual twilight of the caves, seemed to fade even more; his lips were bright red with blood that bubbled at the corners of his mouth.

“I…didn’t…lie,” Hanzo said. When McCree opened his mouth to refute him, Hanzo’s fingers trembled, his lips sliding into a weak smile. “About…loving you.”

McCree choked on a sob and caught Hanzo’s hand as it began to fall, too weak to support itself. “I’m sorry,” he croaked, even though he didn’t know why he apologized. He did the right thing, didn’t he?

Tears blinded him and when he finally managed to clear them enough to see, there was nothing left in Hanzo’s eyes. There was no rattle of breath, no gurgle as he struggled to breathe; his hand hung limply in McCree’s.

“I’m sorry,” McCree whispered, bowing his head over Hanzo’s still body.

He didn’t know how long he sat like that, body bowed over Hanzo’s still corpse. His earlier thoughts had been correct; Hanzo’s last breath had stolen everything from him. That’s why it took so long for him to realize that he wasn’t alone in the cave.

Slowly he looked up and found a man kneeling in front of him, just as Hanzo had what felt like a thousand lifetimes ago. He was naked and a mischievous smile curled his lips.

“Who are you?” McCree asked, voice raw from crying.

The man’s smile widened and McCree suddenly knew the answer.  _ I love my brother _ , Hanzo had once said. At the time, McCree had wondered where his brother was, if he had died and Hanzo had been in denial.

He knew the answer now.

“You have been calling me The Shadow,” the man, Hanzo’s brother, said. “And I must thank you,” he continued with mocking sincerity. “My brother had held me trapped here, had glutted me on flesh and blood until he could put me to sleep again. So,  _ thank you _ , for freeing me.”

The creature—for McCree knew that he could no longer be Hanzo’s brother, not really—laughed and stood. It was the same laugh that McCree had heard echoing in the tunnels when Daniel had been taken from their arms. It stood.

“It feels nice to be free,” the creature breathed in a voice that echoed off the stone walls. Then it grinned at McCree, who stared up at him in horror. “But he  _ did _ tell me not to kill you—and I  _ love my brother _ .” Its voice and shape changed and suddenly Ashe stood in front of him. “Feel free to stay here with him,” the creature said in her voice, the same voice that had been whispering to him about avenging the deaths of his friends, and laughed.

The creature took two enormous steps and was gone. McCree knew, even though he could no longer see it, that it had left; that elsewhere, the world would begin to be devoured by a shadow that could not be stopped.

He was left alone with the body of the man that had stopped it, that had kept it at bay because he could not bear to kill the thing that bore the face and voice of his brother.

Around him, the stone lights began to flicker. Featureless silhouettes appeared, highlighted in the same soft light cast by the stones—the ghosts that Hanzo had mentioned. They held their shape for a moment before fading into mist.

It seemed that they had no desire to linger.

McCree watched as the darkness of the caves began to close in as the spirits left. He thought he saw Ashe and Daniel and Shaw and everyone that had been devoured from the Deadlock Gang but they all disappeared. The shape that may have been Ashe lingered for a moment longer than the rest but she, too, left him.

He watched the history of the caves pass before his eyes, watched as each glowing stone released the spirit of a person that had been devoured by The Shadow. Soon all that was left was the glowing stones on Hanzo’s bracelet.

When they formed, McCree’s breath hitched. Six of them disappeared just as quickly as the rest had, but three lingered long enough for features to form and for McCree to see the family resemblance.

The true spirit of Hanzo’s brother looked down at Hanzo’s body, his face a mask of tragedy; he turned and disappeared. It was just as well.

A man that must be Hanzo’s father regarded McCree for a long moment, his face unreadable. McCree was reminded of samurai movies and his eyes lingered on the man’s ancient clothing. There was nothing left in him to be amazed.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to the ghosts of Hanzo’s parents. “I’m so sorry.”

He wasn’t sure that they understood him—or could even hear him. At last, Hanzo’s father bowed very slightly and turned as if to walk away; he disappeared into mist.

All that was left was Hanzo’s mother who looked at him with a serene face. Would she speak to him?  _ Did _ she want to speak to her son’s killer?

She stepped forward, the layers of her traditional dress that McCree couldn’t remember the name of swaying in a breeze he couldn’t feel. Very gently she cupped McCree’s cheek in a hand that felt like morning mist and turned his head to look at Hanzo’s bracelet.

When she gestured at it, McCree very carefully untied the string that clasped it around his wrist and cradled it in his hands. She smiled at McCree and touched one of the round beads; immediately she disappeared and the bead began glowing again. It was the only spot of light in the darkness of the cave; even the hazy twilight that he had once noticed was gone. Perhaps it had been a trick all along.

For whatever reason, she seemed to have decided to stay with her son’s killer and he clutched the string of beads to his chest. “I’m sorry,” he whispered into the empty, echoing caves. “I’m sorry.”

In the distance, he thought he could hear screams.

* * *

* * *

###  **Day 93:**

He could have survived, maybe.

Hanzo had taught him how. He knows where to find water and how to catch the blind, ghostly forms of the fish that live in the stream.

But he didn’t; he doesn’t. At some point apathy has set in and he sits and stares at Hanzo’s grave, a man that in some ways he has wrongly killed.

Hanzo had loved his brother and for that love had condemned others to die—it was a sin, it was, but…

These days he can’t hear the screams, can’t smell ozone and sulfur wafting in through whatever accesses there were to the outside world. He wonders if the world has finally ended, if The Shadow has finally glutted itself and has settled, like an ancient god, to sleep beneath another mountain range.

The ghost of Hanzo’s mother has stayed with him and casts a gentle silver glow in the darkness. He doesn’t see her again, but he can’t blame her for not wanting to face her son’s killer.

These days he is growing weak. Whatever enchantment that had kept hunger and thirst at bay has dissipated and now hunger gnaws at him. There is nothing for it to consume; he is empty, hollowed out by his grief.

He echoes like the caves.

Slowly, he lays beside the pile of rocks, Hanzo’s grave. When he still had the strength, he had buried Hanzo beneath a simple cairn—the same rocks that had once imprisoned the spirits of the people that had been consumed by The Shadow. He hopes that they don’t mind; Hanzo deserves  _ some _ kind of dignity and McCree hadn’t been sure that he was strong enough to watch his body slowly fall apart.

Now he lays beside a cairn that matched the one that had woken The Shadows in the first place. Perhaps it had covered the real body of Hanzo’s brother; perhaps it had been somebody else.

These days he’s just tired and weak. His time is coming soon.

Would he meet Hanzo? Would he see him again?  _ Could _ he see him again?

Could he apologize on bended knee? Could he kneel before the person he wronged and beg forgiveness? Say all the things that he had once screamed into the caves shortly after Hanzo’s death? Of love and sorrow and regret?

He closes his eyes and imagines Hanzo, pulls every tiny detail from his memory palace where it had been so lovingly kept. He imagines holding Hanzo’s hands and pressing kisses to his knuckles.

Would Hanzo forgive him? Would Hanzo kiss him as sweetly as he had when he was alive? McCree likes to think so—or rather, he  _ wishes _ that he would.

He sighs, imagines holding Hanzo close again. There doesn’t need to be words; he’ll save those for when he really sees Hanzo again, if they ever meet up.

The thought of seeing Hanzo again makes McCree smile.

And sometime between that breath and the next, he dies.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the story of Scheherazade and the One Thousand and One Nights that then took on a life of its own. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it! I certainly had a lot of fun writing it. 
> 
> You can also find me on Twitter at [Dracoduceus](https://twitter.com/dracoduceus). 
> 
> ~DC


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